Your Complete Social Media Checklist

Have you ever wished you had a social media checklist? The amount of work that goes into growing and managing a social media presence is immense, and it can be hard to make sure you’re staying on top of everything that needs to get done.

Today I have Michael Patterson of Sprout Social sharing a guest article and social media checklist. Enjoy!

That’s why Sprout Social created this social media checklist that will help make sure you’re keeping up with all of your tasks on a daily, monthly and quarterly basis. Check out the list below and continue reading to figure out what each task means.

Make sure you check our webinar on How to Market on Social Like a Global Brand on demand at the link. We covered social media checklists and other strategies to help you create an effective social media marketing strategy.

Daily Social Media Checklist

Finish any outstanding tasks:

Sit down with your coffee or tea and spend a few minutes making sure you didn’t skip any of your tasks from the day before. If you did, gauge whether or not those tasks are pressing enough to come first or if you should start from the top of your list.

Respond to inbound social messages:

If you’ve received messages while nobody was monitoring your social channels it’s important to respond to them as soon as you can. According to the Sprout Social Index consumers expect brands to respond to their social inquiries within the first four hours.

Monitor and respond to brand messages:

Not every person who mentions your company or product will directly tag your page. In fact, a lot of people reaching out to you on social media may likely assume you won’t even see their messages. Make sure you monitor social media for key phrases that indicate someone is mentioning you, then join the discussion.

Find and engage with potential customers:

You can also use social media monitoring to find phrases that indicate someone is interested in learning more about your company or products. For example, I recently Tweeted about the lack of Uber in Austin, TX, and a similar company took that opportunity to offer me their own service.

Create conversations with brand advocates:

Your brand advocates are the social media users who love your company and are happy to recommend your brand to their communities. These users may help by sharing your content or even by directly telling a friend to purchase your products. Keep a running list of these users so you can maintain the relationships for long-term benefits.

Load your social media content calendar:

A robust social media calendar is key to a successful social media strategy. Timely social posts can help grow your following, facilitate community engagement and drive clicks to your website. The amount of times you should post to social varies based on your industry and audience, but general guidelines say:

Post six to nine times on Twitter

Post one to two times on Facebook

Post one to two times on Google+

Post one to three times on Instagram

Post one to two times on LinkedIn

Stay up-to-date on the social media industry:

Social media is an incredibly dynamic marketing channel, and if you’re going to take full advantage of all the networks have to offer you’ll need to keep up with the constant updates. Put aside some time every day to do a bit of research on newest tools and best practices.

Create unique images to share on social:

Sharing unique images on social media isn’t just great for increasing message engagement, it’s also an amazing way to showcase who you are and inspire your audience.

Once you’ve spent the time creating a gorgeous image like Peg’s above, you can use a social image resizer tool to turn one image into several, each optimized for a different social network.

Check out your competition’s presence:

While you should never copy your competitor’s social media strategy it’s in your best interest to keep up with what they’re doing on their networks. Look to direct competitors as well as other companies in the industry to identify gaps in the marketplace and find ways to fill those gaps either with content or products.

Build new content:

In order to keep that social content calendar full you’ll need a good deal of unique content to share with your audience. Try to spend some time creating robust content that you know your audience will like, such as:

Blog posts

Guides

Quizzes

eBooks

Webinars

Polls

Think about your brand:

Spend time thinking through your product and your overall social voice to ensure the messages you’re creating fit your brand. Chat with individuals across different departments of your organization to understand how to position your company powerfully on social.

Manage your personal profiles:

Put a little bit of time aside to make sure your personal social profiles look professional. Your brand’s followers may know that you personally manage those pages, and having a solid presence can help lend credibility to the brand pages.

Weekly Social Media Checklist

Engage with thought leaders:

Almost every industry has a group of thought leaders with large social audiences that help dictate the newest trends and strategies. It’s great to engage with the thought leaders in your industry to build strong relationships. Just make sure to do it very passively so you avoid annoying these very busy individuals.

Engage with marketing partners:

If you work with other companies on joint marketing campaigns it’s important to interact with those companies on social sites. For example, at Sprout Social we’ve developed an incredibly strong relationship with the video hosting company Wistia through continued partnerships and online communication.

Discuss tactics with your team:

If there is more than one person managing your social media accounts it’s important to set aside some time to chat. Make sure to discuss new industry trends and strategies as well as how you can make those strategies work for your brand.

Update your calendar with events:

Fill your social media content calendar with events taking place outside of the realm of social media. If your company is hosting an event or attending an event that could be supplemented with some social media content you should start to plan for that ahead of time.

Pull your social media data:

Analyzing your social media data helps you make informed decisions when it comes to social strategy. You can use the data to figure out which networks to leverage, what post copy works best, how quickly you’re responding to inbound messages and much more. Leverage a social media analytics tool to help make these informed decisions.

Encourage sharing with employee advocacy:

An employee advocacy program makes it simple for brands to upload content–like blog posts, webinar invites or even open job positions–into one place so that the employees who work there can easily share it across their social networks. This will help scale the amount of impressions you receive on each piece of content. Try an employee advocacy tool to encourage sharing and run reports on success.

Attend a Twitter chat:

Twitter Chats are micro-communities where individuals come together to share thoughts and strategies with peers in their industry. It’s based on a question and answer format, and it’s a great way to grow your social media following amongst a relevant community.

Monthly Social Media Checklist

Run a social media audit:

A social media audit is when you take an incredibly deep dive into your social media analytics and pore through your data. You can make decisions on whether certain networks are valuable for you, if your long-term strategies are working or even whether or not you need to bring in some additional help.

Attend local social media events:

Take the time to meet some of your social media marketing peers in person! Check out Social Media Examiner’s list of upcoming social media events to find something in your area.

Step away from social media:

There’s a very real issue that can come with too much social media use that Sprout Social’s social media manager Darryl Villacorta refers to as “social media burnout”. It’s the physical or mental collapse caused from being overworked on social media. Make sure to take some time to yourself to relax and avoid burnout. Social media never sleeps, but you should.

Collaborate with other departments:

Almost all departments within an organization can benefit from social media. Your Human Resources team can post job openings, Research and Development can listen to product feedback and Sales can find new opportunities to close deals. Coordinate with these teams to learn how they could benefit from social and how you can support their goals.

Quarterly Social Media Checklist

Pull performance reports:

Most companies report success on a quarterly basis. Spend some time at the end of each quarter to pulling and analyzing reports on your performance. Look at things like your overall brand reach, the number of clicks you drove, your company’s response rate, response speed and more.

Report to your stakeholders:

Share all of the data you pulled with the management team and other departments leveraging social media. This should give them an idea of how social media performs compared to other channels and will help them decide how much additional time they need to spend strategizing.

Adjust your goals:

Social media marketing is incredibly dynamic, and it’s crucial to adjust your goals and change your strategy according to new trends. Spend a portion of your time looking through the goals that you have set yourself, and if you’ve exceeded your expectations then set new goals that are challenging and attainable. If you failed to hit your goal figure out what went wrong and adjust your goals accordingly.

Assess key performance indicators:

KPIs, or key performance indicators, are the metrics that measure whether or not you hit the goals that you have set before yourself. For example, if your goal is website traffic then your KPI may be ‘clicks’. If you’ve adjusted your social media goals then consider whether or not it’s also important to change your KPIs.

Gauge team capacity and needs:

When looking through your quarterly reports consider whether or not you need an additional team member. Could you have completed more tasks and tested new strategies with some help? If your answer is yes then it’s definitely something to consider.

Re-evaluate your social crisis plan:

There are so many stories online of social media gone awry. Whether someone broke into your brand’s account and shared some offensive material, or a rogue employee went in and said something they shouldn’t have, it’s important to have a strategy in place to deal with the inevitable fallout. Make sure that your strategy is up-to-date in case the worst happens.

Immediate Checklist

Print out this checklist to help you keep track of to-dos:

If you find that these are the same tasks that you’d like to accomplish then make sure to print out this checklist. It should help make sure you’re getting as much out of social media marketing as you can.

Make sure to view our social strategy webinar:

Sprout Social and Peg Fitzpatrick have teamed up to create a new webinar that will teach you how to market on social media as well as a global brand. View on demand here!

Start a free 30-day Sprout Social trial:

Though this checklist may be daunting, there are tools out there that can help make social media more manageable. A tool like Sprout Social can help you manage your entire social media presence effectively, so go ahead and start a free trial to see if it’s a good fit for you!

Thank you to Michael from Sprout Social for this comprehensive social media checklist! Make sure that you save this valuable resource!

About Michael Patterson

Michael enjoys writing about all things social media, and his insights can be found on Adweek's SocialTimes, Social Media Today and Social Media Examiner. When he isn't pouring over blog posts he can usually be found exploring Chicago's unique neighborhoods and breweries.

I must say the appearance and graphics on peg’s blog is by far best from all the blogs that I have visited.
Well let’s come to your post. Social media marketing is one of the most important tools for a blog.
Earlier there was a time when success of blog was determined by no. of comments; Now No. of social media share is characterized as a parameter to evaluate blog’s success.
I found your tips regarding social media engagement worth following. Hope this helps all the reader engaging better result on social media profiles.
With regards,
Saurav

If I had posted some obscure comment about a company on social media, \ obviously not expecting the company to even know or care if I posted, only to find the company come back, recognize my comment and be cool, I dunno I just might be a customer for life.

Thanks for the insight. You made it simple and inspiring. Finally got the help I needed.

Meet Peg Fitzpatrick!

Peg Fitzpatrick is a popular social media speaker, trainer and, social media author. She's co-author of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users. Covering all the major social media platforms, she frequently hears “you’re everywhere!” She’s passionate about social media and inspiring others to be their best. Read More…